The FTC announced that a formal antitrust lawsuit against Facebook may seek to force Facebook to break up
Earlier, the US regulator had filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google. The regulator accused Google of using its market monopoly position and advantages to fight against competitors.
Regulators even have the idea to completely split Google to prevent giant technology companies like Google from having a serious impact on market development through monopoly status. Now, the Federal Communications Commission of the United States announced the formal antitrust lawsuit against Facebook.
The antitrust arguments raised by the regulator against Google are mainly Google search and Google Chrome browser. Google has long monopolized the search market through search engines and browsers.
There are more antitrust arguments against Facebook than Google. For example, Facebook has long maintained its monopoly on social networks by acquiring competitors.
This includes the acquisition of photo-sharing community Instagram in 2012, the acquisition of messaging app WhatsApp in 2014, and even abnormal anti-competitive conditions.
Through these measures, Facebook firmly controls the social network market and the advertising market, and users have almost no choice but to choose the products of Facebook and its affiliates.
Through these strategies, Facebook has also become one of the largest advertising networks in the market, which makes advertisers have no choice other than Facebook and Google, leading to a loss of price advantage.
The US Federal Communications Commission stated that personal social networks are vital to the lives of millions of Americans, and Facebook consolidates its monopoly position to exploit the rights of consumers.
Therefore, the purpose of antitrust litigation is to reduce Facebook’s anti-competitive behavior and restore free competition in the market, so that innovation and free competition can flourish.
It is speculated that regulators may seek to forcefully split Facebook, and the focus may be to force Facebook to break up Instagram and WhatsApp and no longer hold them.
Via: TechCrunch
